


in spite of ourselves we persist

by stranglerfig



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, Past Rape/Non-con, People being truly and genuinely horrid to each other about severe trauma and illness, Recovery, Therapy, and reluctantly growing together anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27246304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stranglerfig/pseuds/stranglerfig
Summary: Six instances occurring over two years of sitting in Betsy Dobson's waiting room together.
Relationships: Allison Reynolds/Renee Walker (All For The Game), Andrew Minyard & Allison Reynolds, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 13
Kudos: 152





	in spite of ourselves we persist

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back at it again with my Allison-centric character studies. 
> 
> I've been thinking about how I don't see many fics that even mention Allison's bulimia (including my own!). In fact, when EDs are included in AFTG fic, it's usually an AU about Neil. I've also been thinking about how Allison and Andrew have some fundamental things in common. This is the result of those thoughts churning around for a while. If those thoughts also churn in your head, do comment! 
> 
> Please heed the warnings and tags.
> 
>  **Warnings:** ableist language, mentions of eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, and sexual assault, and people doing their every best to hurt each other over those things.

**I.**

The monster was breathing fire. Like any other dragon, he puffed out thick curls of rancid smoke, with no regard for the fire alarm or Allison’s lung capacity. What did it matter that they were both on a tenuous-at-best athletic scholarship? 

And the fucking receptionist had stepped out—she was _always out_ —and even if she’d been there she wouldn’t fuck with the monster. Two months and he already had a reputation. Everyone was shit-scared of him. 

Allison wasn’t shit-scared of anything. 

She pointedly shifted her weight on the awful waiting room chair. Legs tightening, head tilted, slightly louder exhale on her next breath. 

He glanced up at her and grinned like he’d been waiting for her to react. 

She hated that grin. It was toothy and draconic, and it might have been copy-pasted from one moment of its display to the next; it was always uncannily identical. Its perfection belied its true function: a mask. 

Allison knew about masks. She spent thirty minutes sewing one on to her skin every morning. 

“Not content to kill just yourself slowly?” she bit out, sneering to show his crazy-ass smile didn’t fool her. 

The smile remained, plastic and perfect and parted around the cigarette. He didn’t even respond, just held her gaze, took the cigarette between two fingers and blew smoke pointedly across the room. It couldn’t possibly have reached her, but she waved a lazy hand in front of her face regardless. Maybe the monster had teeth. She had talons, hot pink and deadly. 

“Who are you, again?” he asked. 

She scoffed. 

“No, really,” he said, all false earnestness behind that frozen smile. He leant forward, elbows on his knees. “Who the fuck are you, Reynolds? Not that I give a shit.”

“You just said my name, dumbass.”

His grinned widened a fraction, perfectly calculated to unnerve. “Names are boring, control freak. Don’t think I haven’t seen your meal plan.” 

Okay. So the monster’s teeth bit after all. Allison’s claws came out to meet them.

“You fucking freak,” she spat, and the monster laughed a black-hole laugh. “You can’t just go through confidential—” 

“I’ll do what I want,” he said lazily. “I’m done with you.” 

She stood, hands trembling, nails cutting her palms. Who gave a shit about what Matt had warned them about—some fucking batshit freshman thought he could come into this place, of all places—

“Allison?” 

Betsy’s arms were crossed, corners of her mouth drawn down. She waited in the doorway, looking infinitely older than usual. “Andrew, I would ask that you do not smoke inside, please. Some people are very allergic to cigarette smoke.” 

The monster took an exaggerated drag and blew it up towards the obviously fucked fire detector. 

Allison recovered herself. Pushed her hair over her shoulder. Settled her purse in her elbow. Casually checked her pinky nail. “You know, monster,” she said, passing him and his arm bands as she followed Betsy down the hall, “it takes one to know one.” 

**II.**

She scrolled through her phone, mindless. The pictures flashing past might have anything in the world. Her mind was spiraling in slow but inexorable circles, wheeling like a bird with one broken wing. The repetitive move of her thumb across the screen _—flick, flick, flick—_ tethered her tenuously to her body. 

She was jostled roughly back into it by the scream—a raw hoarse shout of pain, followed by a crash, and Betsy’s measured but raised tone—

She was on her feet as the monster came careening into the waiting room, laughing like a hyena. It was the sort of laugh that was a mask. 

He blew past her, and she had no clue why she did it, only that she hadn’t been in control of what her body did all day and she needed to _prove_ it—

She reached out as he fled, for he _was_ fleeing, and seized the monster’s forearm. 

He moved so fast her head spun, sent her sprawling across three uncomfortable chairs, and there was a knife against her cheek, a drop of blood rolling down towards her jaw. Her breath rattled, disjointed, in her chest, and he was still laughing, laughing, laughing. 

“You’re such a goddamned fucked-up monster,” she spat. “Get the _fuck_ off me before I kill you.” 

His laughter stopped like someone turning off a faucet, drip-drip-dripping into silence, leaving a mask of a grin. “I thought _I_ was doing that already.” He tilted his head. “Killing myself slowly? Just like you, control freak?” 

She shoved him back. He was tiny, no matter how many knives he had, and she was an athlete who gave a shift, no matter what everyone else thought. “I always thought Wymack would _actually_ stop short of letting a psychopath onto this fucking team. Did you fucking kill Betsy?” 

“Maybe.” 

The knife was gone. The sleeve she had grabbed was askew. He followed her gaze to the top of a mountain range. 

“Hah.” One more hollow, leaky-faucet drip of a laugh. Dispassionately, he tugged the sleeve down, and when he met her eyes again, his were dead, dead, dead behind that smile. 

She sneered. “Like I give a shit. Consider it square, for looking at my fucking meal plan. Trades are your fucked-up thing, right? Sorry, _one_ of your fucked-up things.”

His smile faded. It was bizarre and distasteful to witness its departure. “I’ll personally sew your lips shut if you give me cause.” 

“Your priorities are one of the many other fucked-up things about you.” 

The monster put an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He tipped a two-fingered salute to someone behind her and left. 

Allison turned to Betsy, watching curiously from the doorway. 

“Thanks for the help,” Allison spat.

“Did you need it?” Betsy asked mildly.

Allison stormed through the door.

**III.**

Allison Reynolds was Allison Reynolds. And so while her world ended, she was posture perfect. Hands folded atop crossed legs. Dry gaze fixed on the clock. Buffeting away the thoughts of how it had gotten to this point, again, _again,_ and her future was collapsing around her. Because she hadn’t hidden it well enough. Because she was running herself into the goddamn ground at practice with not a fucking thing to show for it except a tiredness that was eroding her from the inside out. Because she was out of fucking control.

No, she wasn’t thinking of that. She was watching the clock. 

Minyard, sprawled in a chair across the waiting room, scoffed loudly. “If you were any more pathetic, I’d kill you.” 

She said nothing. She watched the clock. She was the clock. _Tick, tick, tick._ She was the second hand, unable to slow down for one goddamn minute, unable to get herself, any part of herself, in any semblance of control. _Tick, tick, tick._

“How’s it feel to prove them all right?” drawled Minyard. “Mommy and daddy and all the doctors and nurses, who knew that no matter how hard you tried, you were never going to be able to keep anything in life down?” 

Allison broke. She hurled her phone at Minyard, as hard as she threw on the court. When he snatched it from the air it actually pulled him backwards. Her purse followed, and then the shitty magazines on the size side table and then the lampshade and while she was groping for the cord of the lamp to yank out to throw that too, he started laughing.

“Shut the fuck up!” she screamed, and shoved the lamp off the table and then kicked the table over. “You don’t know, you fucking psycho, you don’t know _anything_ and I hope you really do fucking off yourself one of these days and do the world a favor—”

“That makes two of us,” he drawled, and then he was snatching her hand from where it flew at his face and using it to shove her down into a chair. His hand was tight around the bones of her wrist. She was so tired. She was so, so, so tired to her goddamn soul, _why_ couldn’t she just fucking get herself under _control—_

She was crying in front of Minyard. His eyes were empty fucking black holes of mania. 

“You’re being incredibly boring,” he observed. “Cheating. Hiding. Lying. There’s nothing new to you, there’s nothing _you_ to you. You’re just like everyone.” 

“You mean I’m just like _you,”_ she spat. “You’re bored of your own fucking self, Minyard. God, you’re a freak. I’m almost glad they’re kicking me off, if I won’t have to see your crazy-ass face anymore.” 

He released her, wrist throbbing. Dropped her phone into her lap. “The most boring thing about you,” he said, “is how the world keeps dragging you along behind it. You really think you’re lucky enough not to get one more chance?” 

**IV.**

Minyard was a corpse. Or doing his best impression of it, in the otherwise empty waiting room, sprawled across from Allison. He wasn’t even smoking his cigarette, just staring at it between his lax fingers. 

Sober Minyard was just about as fucked as manic Minyard, it seemed, only in the opposite direction. She wasn’t sure which she hated more. 

_Tick, tick, tick._ The clocked ticked on in the silence, and she was the second hand, but Minyard was the hour hand, so still he was nearly dead. That made Betsy the minute hand, she supposed.

“Hey. Monster. Freak. Thing two. Minyard.” 

His eyelashes didn’t so much as flutter.

She scoffed. “You’re being incredibly boring.” 

She smiled smugly as he turned his gaze up to her, one micrometer at a time. When their eyes met, he just stared. His eyes were—they were fucking _nothing_. Not even black holes. Just nothing. 

“Christ, Minyard. What the fuck did they _do_ to you at that place.” 

_Tick, tick, tick._ Minyard blinked, once. His lips moved the barest amount to let words pass. “Just kept dragging me along.” 

“Didn’t get lucky?” 

The tiniest, most awful smile cut into his cheek. The most awful thing about it was how un-masklike it was. “Close. Not yet.” 

Well, fuck her for that one, really. She didn’t like to stoop to his level, and she’d done it. She clicked her cerulean nails together. Stood up and walked out of the waiting room. Walked back in with a Kit-Kat from the vending machine. Got within five feet of Minyard since he’d tried to kill her in the dorm. Snapped the Kit-Kat in half and dangled two of the thin bars in front of Minyard’s nose. 

He stared at it. 

“It’s an apology,” Allison said. 

“That’s not on your meal plan,” he said, voice dispassionate. 

“What, haven’t gotten bored of stealing those?” 

“They lull me to sleep.” 

She wiggled the Kit-Kat impatiently. “If you read them, you know they’re not diet plans, they’re baselines. Accept my goddamn apology, monster.” 

Slowly, he took the Kit-Kat. She retreated to her seat across the room, raised her half in salute. Took a bite to prove it wasn’t poisoned. 

They ate their Kit-Kat in a silent staring contest. Betsy found them in their strange communion, observing silently from the doorway until Minyard slouched upward to skulk after her. 

Allison finished her Kit-Kat slowly, savoring it. Opened her phone. Felt like she was maybe a minute hand, today. 

**V.**

There was something off about Minyard. It didn’t make her uneasy, and _that_ made her uneasy. He was staring at her—that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that there was something not-dead in his eyes.

“What, monster?” she asked, flicking her thumbnail across her phone without looking down at it. 

He narrowed his eyes.

 _“What,_ monster? What do you want?” 

“I want nothing.” 

“You wanted half of my M&Ms.” 

“Those were not wanted.” 

“You’re saying you took something you didn’t want.” 

He glared. She smirked. Point Reynolds. “Tell me what you _want,_ monster.” 

“You and fuckass.” 

Her thumb stopped moving. “Excuse me.” 

He glared at her, gaze deadening. “Gordon.” 

Her heart had frozen. “What about him.” 

“Did he—” Minyard looked like he was trying to speak an alien tongue. “Did he know?” 

Allison put down her phone. This was the most interesting thing to ever happen in this waiting room. “Know what?”

Minyard sneered. “Where the fuck are we?” 

She frowned. “Everyone knew. Everyone knows.” 

“But did he—did he _know?”_

Allison considered the question. “No, monster. He didn’t know. No one can _know—_ but he tried to understand.” She fixed him with her most penetrating gaze. “Why.” 

He was stone. But under that stone, there was something new. Unthinkably, his lips moved again. “It’s about control, then.” 

“No shit it’s about control.” 

He sighed out, done with her. “Boring.” 

“No, come back. Say what you mean.” 

“Fuck off.” He turned his head to the side, lifted his unlit cigarette to his lips.

Why was it so important that she not fuck off? She didn’t know, but it was. “You mean—I couldn’t control how he saw me, what he thought. I know that. I was—I was shit-scared of it. But he tried to understand, and it was enough.” She thought of someone else who was trying to understand. Who had been trying to understand for a long, long time. “It’s enough.” 

Minyard was well and truly done with her, body facing the door to the hallway. But she thought she’d made her point.

**VI.**

“See you in an hour and a half, babe.” Renee, her smile perfect and butterfly-lovely, leaned forward to kiss her. Allison could have melted, but instead she pulled away, smiling a smile that no one else in this world would see. 

She started to get out of the car—and stopped getting out of the car.

The Maserati had pulled up behind them. Andrew was not behind the wheel. Andrew slid out of the car and leaned into the window, talking to Neil. 

Allison stared at them in the rearview mirror, entranced. Neil was smiling. Andrew wasn’t smiling, but his face wasn’t made of stone. What was she seeing?

“Rude, don’t you think?” Renee murmured.

“Not when it comes to the monster,” Allison said, baffled beyond all comprehension. 

“Goodbye,” Renee said pointedly. Allison kissed her cheek and left the car, for real.

She and Andrew faced off as the cars peeled away. Then Andrew dismissed her and went in the building, deliberately letting the door shut on her. They paced silently through the lobby and into the waiting room, signing in at the absent receptionist’s desk.

They sat and evaluated each other from opposite sides of the room. He was cold and unaffected, but his eyes had some cousin to life in them. She noted and disregarded the tick of the clock. 

She was real and here in this moment, and goddamn it. It felt good.

“This,” she said, gesturing between the two of them, “is a goddamn miracle, Andrew.” 

He narrowed his eyes.

“I’m graduating; I’m calling you Andrew. We’re there. It’s that or Drew. Tell me I’m wrong.” 

“About which part,” he said flatly. 

“You know, I don’t fucking miss your smile,” she told him. “It was scary as fuck.” 

“I don’t miss your pathetic goddamn meltdowns.” He lit a cigarette.

“Put that shit out.” 

He took a drag and blew the smoke towards her. She delicately lifted a lilac-nailed hand and waved it away. “You and Neil?” 

He blinked at her, slow, unimpressed.

She grinned. “Loverboy.” 

He scowled. “Control freak.” 

“Tell me I’m wrong,” she demanded. “Tell me this isn’t some batshit, goddamn, get-fucked miracle. Us, here, with them. Tell me I’m wrong.” 

He blew his smoke at her. Didn’t meet her eyes.

“That’s what I thought,” she said smugly. She grinned and stood; Betsy was in the doorway, eyes deep and warm. Andrew flicked his fingers at her. She turned down the hall.


End file.
